SDL 2006 - 1st conference in CAS

Here we go - the first conference experience, meeting many AIESECers at one place, sleeping few hours a day...

SDL (Leadership development seminar) - was conference for almost 50 delegates - mainly new AIESEC members. Based on the name of the conference it is not hard to find out, what is it about. But there was also second track of the agenda - TtT (Train the Trainer). TtT delegates were EB members plus international delegates - AIESECers from other countries or the trainees, who attended the conference, which resulted in 21 people from 11 different countries.

When I came to the site I was out of the breath for few minutes - I had a feeling that it cannot be true - such a nice place, perfect rooms for sessions, nice hotel rooms, but mainly... the plenary "room". Actually it wasn't a room, it was space with roof, but without walls, so we had outdoor plenaries...

During the opening plenary I realized, that I have to learn spanish until next conference - there were lot of internationals, but as lot of new AIESECers in CAS are not 100% comfortable with english, the main language of plenaries was spanish. Well, I have clear goal - mid october is my DDL. Otherwise it was very similar to our opening - chair introduction, LC roll-calls and also international roll-calls - I was asked twice for help, so I was part of AIESEC Hong-Kong, AIESEC US and I did Slovak roll-call (I was thinking also about the czech one, but I saved that for Sunday in order of not confusing delegates right at the beginning of the conference).

After that our TtT started - 18 delegates with very different profiles and backgrounds, 3 facilitators with very different profiles and backgrounds (Martin - born in Hong-Kong, but coming from AIESEC Canada, Lili - born in Romania, but coming from AIESEC Belgium and me - born in Slovakia, but coming from AIESEC Czech Republic). At the beginning I was worried, how it will be to have in group few LCPs and next to them trainees, who were for the first time at AIESEC conference, but at the end it was maybe better to have such diverse group of people, at least they could learn a lot also from each other.

TtT delegates...

And of course I was able also to learn much more from them - I have never facilitated such diverse group, and I see this experience as very important and valuable. It is cool to see so many nationalities being in one room and participating in discussions and simulations.